Similarly, Ms Luk says her time in university was more focused on securing internships and networking than scoring As. That helped her land her current job on the operations team of a bank in Amsterdam upon graduation. It was an approach enabled by one of the notable quirks of the Dutch education system: Students can resit any exam once, at no penalty.
Now a year into her job there, she says the Netherlands’ multilingual workplace has not made her feel out of place as someone with limited conversational Dutch fluency. Her university course was taught in English.
She says the Netherlands is the place she calls home for now because it has what she finds lacking in Singapore, namely work-life balance and the ability to collect international experiences. These, she says, include enjoying more affordable concert culture and the ease of travelling around the borderless Schengen Area within the European Union.

Overcoming culture shockOf course, not treading the well-worn path is not all roses. Culture shock can prove to be a daunting and isolating challenge, especially in the initial months.
“I’ve never met someone who was like me, a Singaporean who was studying in my city long-term. Most of the ones I meet are in the Netherlands as exchange students,” says Ms Luk about her time in Tilburg.
The Singapore Students’ Association of Germany told The Straits Times it has around 20 active members, while the equivalent association in Japan has about 160. This is a stark contrast to big cities in anglophone countries with big Singaporean communities. For example, the Singapore Students Association at just one university in the US – the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – has more than 120 students on its registry.
This scarcity of Singaporean compatriots means having to go it alone when dealing with culture shock. These range from unpleasant brushes with slow bureaucracy – fax machines and paper are preferred over e-mail in Germany and Japan – to struggling with a new language and getting used to a different way of life.
Mr Hannan Hazlan, a 26-year-old pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen, a public university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, says: “I knew that Germany offered free tuition, but I didn’t know how hard learning German would be.”
He pays around €300 ($440) for a 14-week semester in administrative fees, which adds up to $880 a year.
While picking up everyday conversational German to order a meal is easy, understanding the technical German required for schooling is much tougher. The second-year undergrad credits the time he invested in learning the language prior to his course as the key reason why he was not overwhelmed by his German-language curriculum.
Besides a year spent at a language school in Berlin, he began studying German on his own during NS. Still, when he first moved there, Mr Hannan recalls having to ask locals if they spoke English.

But overcoming the linguistic challenge was worthwhile. Mr Hannan, who graduates in 2026, plans to settle down in Germany to build a career in the automotive industry, and has found a new community of friends.
As a car enthusiast, Germany was an intuitive choice for him, a way to combine his career aspirations – working for a leading carmaker such as Volkswagen or BMW – with a work culture that focuses less on grinding and hustle.
It helps that the country has an intense love of motoring. “Even people who don’t study here and are just visiting, they come to drive on the autobahn to experience driving 300km an hour or more on a public highway,” he says.
Meanwhile, Ms Sabrina, who moved to Japan with only an elementary grasp of Japanese, credits the immersion with getting her to her current level of fluency – the second-highest of Japan’s five-point scale of language proficiency.
“This was something I was very scared of doing, I didn’t want to lose face and talk to people before I was fluent in Japanese, but then eventually, I decided I had to,” she says.
Through joining groups such as her university’s entrepreneurship club and part-time sales work, her friends now include international students – who account for no more than 10 per cent of her current cohort of about 100 students – as well as Japanese co-workers and fellow business-minded locals.
Having bought a small Daihatsu car from a senior at the university for about $1,000, she now relishes driving around Kyushu and exploring the country – especially during the Covid-19 years when borders closed and tourism was at an all-time low.
She now plans to complete a two-year master’s degree at Kyushu University and contribute to the growing start-up scene in Fukuoka. She hopes to open a business that leverages the design and entrepreneurial skills she gained during her studies.
“I didn’t really put Japan on this pedestal where I thought it was going to be sparkly and beautiful all the time,” says Ms Sabrina. But she adds that these past four years studying there opened her eyes to a radically different world.
For those considering it, she has these words of advice: “I would say it’s not the right place if you’re not willing to take up the challenge of learning a new language and culture, and accept that what you already know isn’t universal.”

https://www.straitstimes.com/life/off-to-uni-in-japan-and-germany-more-singaporeans-choosing-road-less-travelled-when-studying-abroad

粗略翻譯：

赴日本和德國讀大學：更多新加坡人出國留學時，選擇人跡罕至的道路

絕大多數出國留學的新加坡人會選擇以下三個國家之一：美國、英國和澳洲。
根據聯合國教科文組織關於全球高等教育學生流動的數據，2021 年，近十分之八的出國本地學生直奔這三個國家。
然而，一小部分但不斷增長的新加坡本科生正在開闢一條鮮為人知的道路，前往荷蘭、德國和日本等國家。

根據荷蘭教育國際化組織 Nuffic 的數據，在荷蘭求學的新加坡學位人數從 2012 年的 32 人增加到 2022 年的 109 人，增加了一倍多。
根據德國學術交流服務中心的數據，在德國，這一數字從 2013 年的 167 人增加到 2022 年的 266 人。日本學生支援機構的數據顯示，日本的數字從 2008 年的 156 人激增至 2022 年的 287 人。
在這些求學替代目的地的大學就讀的新加坡學生表示，他們這樣做是出於負擔能力、靈活性和尋求獨特的國際經驗的原因。

對自己和家人來說，在這些非英語國家學習在經濟上更可行。例如，荷蘭國際學生的學費通常在每年 9,000 歐元（13,200 新元）到 20,000 歐元之間。日本的學費平均每年約為 820,000 日元（7,300 新元）至 1,100,000 日元，而德國大學一般不收取學費，因為公立高等教育是免費的。
相較之下，英國國際學生的平均學費為 22,200 英鎊（37,500 新元），而澳洲國際學生的典型費用為每年 20,000 澳元（17,700 新元）至 45,000 澳元。在新加坡，大多數新加坡人公立自治大學的學費在扣除補貼後每年在 7,500 美元到 12,700 美元之間，具體取決於課程。
接受《海峽時報》採訪的學生表示，在荷蘭、德國和日本留學的費用相對較低，這讓他們有機會在不影響學位品質的情況下獨立生活，否則他們可能無法獲得學位。負擔得起出國留學的費用。
28 歲的 Ruth Luk 女士於 2021 年移居荷蘭，在北布拉班特省的蒂爾堡大學攻讀商業學士學位。這項決定是在做了計算後做出的，她意識到，憑藉在自閉症資源中心（新加坡）擔任職業教練並從當地銀行獲得學生貸款的兩年積蓄，她去荷蘭接受教育是力所能及範圍內的事。

她每年的學費高達 10,000 歐元，她用學生貸款支付了這筆費用。她的父母不需要花任何錢。她估計，由於她選擇的城市的相對負擔能力，她每年的生活費用約為 11,000 歐元。她還在蒂爾堡做兼職，輔導和送餐。
她很高興自己的選擇，因為三大留學目的地（澳洲、英國和美國）的學費和生活成本較高，這意味著畢業後將背負「更嚴重」的債務。

對於 22 歲的 Sabrina Suhaimi 女士來說，她最初只申請了美國和英國的工業和產品設計項目，日本並不在她的候選名單上。但 Covid-19 大流行打亂了她的計劃，她開始廣泛申請。
「我選擇日本並堅持下去的最大原因之一是因為我可以很快獲得獨立，」九州大學跨學科科學與創新本科課程的四年級學生說，該課程以日語和英語授課。
她的學費一年為 535,800 日圓。憑藉著從大學獲得的獎學金，以及在福岡從事零售業和教書的兼職工作，她在日本城市的第二年就可以在沒有父母金錢支持的情況下資助自己的學業。
與東京和新加坡等城市相比，福岡的生活成本相對較低，有助於降低她的租金和雜貨費用。薩布麗娜女士在成本方面面臨的主要挑戰是找到負擔得起的清真食品選擇，這些食品的價格通常是非清真食品的兩倍。